The Nature to Nurture

Over the past month or so I’ve been thinking about my role as a woman and soon-to-be wife. With a demanding job, freelance work, putting the condo on the market, planning the wedding and having Trav’s sister move in with us things are moving at an exceedingly fast pace and I was reaching burn out. I’m not special – all of my girlfriends seem to be stretched and stressed to the same levels that I am. C’est la vie I suppose.

I spend a lot of time and effort giving to other people and nurturing their needs. You see it’s my nature to nurture. It always has been, but recently I started asking the question, “Who is going to nurture me?”

I really struggled with this until I came to the conclusion that I would just need to nurture myself. So I made a vow to say no more often, to treat myself to a monthly massage, to get to bed early, go back to the gym regularly, and to spend more time doing the things that I truly enjoy and not just the things I feel obligated to do.

Then last Friday I had breakfast with some of my besties and I realized that they are the people who nurture me in a way that no one else can (myself included). Their friendship provides me with peace, support, understanding, laughter, fashion advice, and so much more.

So as women do we have a responsibility to nurture each other as much as we nurture our husbands, children, bosses, coworkers, and family?

My gut feeling is that we have an innate ability to give each other the emotional support that no one else can. After all, no one in this world can relate to the pressure, joy, happiness and challenges that we uniquely face as modern working women.

I walked away from breakfast feeling refreshed and happy. While we don’t all face the same challenges, we certainly can relate to each other in a way that other people can’t.

We’re hoping to sell it and then rent a house for awhile. We’ve lost so much value on the condo that at this point our real estate agent estimates that we would have to stay for 15 years to make any money back! We decided it would be nice to move on before we get married.